According to the 2012 Cloud Computing Survey released this month by IDG, the number one barrier to implementing cloud strategies is security. A full 70% of respondents reported being significantly worried about it. More than service interruptions and other factors – unauthorized users getting access to data strikes fear into the heart of potential cloud adopters.

However, because of their flexibility, potential cost savings and ease of use, the allure of cloud computing is undeniable. So, what to do? How can we have cloud computing platforms that inspire confidence instead of instill fear?

It all starts with education. Everyone developing a cloud-delivered service becomes, de facto, an IT architect. Users must understand the risks and responsibilities in operating on a cloud, and follow a set of best practices that they respect and incorporate into their daily routines.

Second, we have to think in a different context – it needs to be more about securing information, rather than the security of physical devices and locations. If the information is secure by its nature, it doesn’t matter where it is, or what device it is on. The data has to be encrypted and available only to those who need access to it. Putting the onus on the data owner instead of the cloud provider is a good idea. Ponemon and CA released the results of a survey in May 2011 which showed that cloud providers didn’t make security their number one concern. The majority of cloud providers believed it was their customer’s responsibility to secure the cloud, not theirs.

Finally, this leads us to the importance of knowing and trusting the cloud vendor and the country the hosting data center operates in. Depending on the location of the data center, there are possible data rights issues and disruptions caused by political unrest, infrastructure issues or natural disaster. In the end, you’re investing not only in the cloud provider, but in a country as well.

The IBM Center for Applied Insights has been working with IBM’s VP of IT Risk to develop a series of eight articles on Security Essentials for CIOs, based on IBM's own experiences. The latest, the third in the series, is about what it takes for an enterprise to develop a secure cloud computing strategy.

There has been a great deal of recent press stating that Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) is “the future” of cloud. With a PaaS model, the user retains control of the application data, capabilities and updates, while the provider manages the software and infrastructure beneath that application. A lot has been made of the potential value of the technology – making the entire application lifecycle more efficient and less risky, while opening the doors for new organizational constructs and increased innovation and differentiation.

In its latest cloud hype cycle, Gartner placed PaaS at the summit, stating that it will be a transformational technology in the next two to five years. However, Gartner also said that PaaS is one of the most misunderstood aspects of cloud platforms. Adam Wiggins, one of the founders of cloud application platform provider Heroku, thinks that the PaaS market is just getting started. Finally Frost & Sullivan recently reported that “the platform-as-a-service market will be the next area of keen competition for cloud innovators, as the infrastructure- and software-as-a-service spaces have been commoditized.”

All of this may be true. A lot of enterprises are just getting started experimenting with and testing PaaS implementations, and it may take a number of years for widespread adoption. Technology adoption rates are always difficult to predict, but I think we can say with certainty that PaaS is a hot topic, with great potential, and much more will be written about it.

Platform as a service (PaaS) is at a critical stage in its life cycle – with promising business benefits offset by lingering reservations. PaaS promises increased flexibility, lower costs and higher quality IT services, while maintaining control over data and applications. It sits squarely between infrastructure as a service and software as a service, and could prove to be the most transformational of the three main types of cloud computing.

The IBM Center for Applied Insights wanted to explore attitudes around PaaS in order to identify leading practices in PaaS adoption and provide recommendations on how to exploit its potential. We interviewed over 1,500 IT decision makers in 18 countries and a wide range of industries so we could better understand their motivations, experiences and concerns relating to PaaS. This week, we released the results of our exploration in our latest paper “Exploring the frontiers of cloud computing – Insights from platform as a service pioneers”.

The report goes into more detail on the benefits and challenges surrounding PaaS, how to overcome the challenges and what an enterprise can do to start, or continue, their PaaS journey. For a view from cloud pioneers CLD Partners, check out their post on IBM’s Thoughts on Cloud blog. For more information about IBM’s SmartCloud Application Services launch and the study check out a recent article by ZDNet.

The study explores how enterprises are responding to the opportunities and risks introduced by new technologies.This year, we surveyed over 1,200 IT and business decision makers to determine why, when, and how their organizations adopt four pivotal emerging technologies – mobile, analytics, cloud and social business technologies – that are rapidly reshaping how enterprises operate.

Are you in the lead, or is your organization falling behind? You can use the adoption and investment statistics we discovered to help you assess where your organizationstands:

Business Analytics and Mobile Computing are already quite mainstream, with over 50% of respondents deploying.Cloud Computing and Social Business represent a coming wave, with 40% either already piloting the technologies, or planning to adopt them within two years.Moreover, planned investment levels in the four technologies over the next two years indicate that all are moving full steam ahead: 55% or more of respondents plan to increase investment in Mobile, Cloud, and Business Analytics, and 43% plan to increase their investment in Social Business. You can click on the following infographic to take a deeper dive:

Despite the foothold of these technologies and the enthusiastic investment landscape, the report cites critical IT skill gaps that threaten to slam on the brakes just as organizations are hoping to leverage these technologies for their strategic advantage:

Across all four technology areas, only roughly 1 in 10 companies report having all the skills they need to be successful, and one-quarter of respondents report major skill gaps.

We also surveyed about 700 educators and students about these technology areas, and according to their responses, the skill gap is poised to get even worse:

About one-half of academic respondents report major gaps in their institution’s ability to meet the needs of the IT workforce.

Security also continues to be a major concern. In fact, Security is rated as the #1 barrier to adoption for mobile, cloud and social business, and the #2 barrier to adoption for business analytics.

What can you learn from those making the most progress applying these technologies for strategic advantage?

We asked respondents to rate the four emerging technologies’ importance to their businesses and also to rate their enterprises’ pace of adoption relative to competitors. We identified an elite group of Pacesetters who are forging ahead faster than others – despite the adoption hurdles – and who are using emerging technologies in more strategic ways.

If you want to get your organization onto the technology fast track (or keep it there), there are a number of interesting lessons you can take from the Pacesetters. We found that Pacesetters are more likely to exhibit three distinguishing traits that help them capitalize on the potential of mobile, analytics, cloud and social technologies. They are:

More market-driven

More analytical

More experimental

So, how are Pacesetters managing to stay ahead of the competition? As it turns out, they’re very experimental in their approach to developing IT skills. Rather than wait until there’s clear business demand for new skills, Pacesetters start building skills ahead of time: they are nine times more likely to experiment with technologies that don’t yet have a clear business application, and twice as likely to proactively develop skills to meet anticipated needs.

To learn more about the study results and how you can follow the pacesetters’ lead in technology adoption, you can check out the complete IBM 2012 Tech Trends report and a variety of other resources.

Don't miss the paper's list of concrete recommendations for becoming Pacesetters. We invite you to join in the discussion and let us know what you think about the study and its recommendations!

Susanne Hupfer, Consultant, IBM Center for Applied Insights
Our director, Steve Rogers, recently interviewed Paul Brunet, IBM Vice President of ISVs, Start-ups, and Academic Programs, about his perspective on the 2012 Tech Trends study. Whether you're an IT or business decision-maker, an academic, or an IT practitioner, you may discover valuable insights and recommendations in their broad-ranging conversation.

IT and business leaders:
Why are CEOs regarding technology and skills as top concerns -- now outranking even market and economic forces? Why is it crucial to leverage emerging technologies for competitive advantage?
Paul discusses four technology areas -- mobile, cloud, social business, and business analytics -- and contrasts adoption and skill levels in mature and growth markets. He covers challenges to adoption -- such as security, skill gaps, and integration -- and explains why security is a business imperative. IT and business decision-makers may also be eager to learn more about the elite "pacesetter" group identified by the study, who are unlocking competitive advantage by being more market-driven, experimental, and analytical.

Academics:
How can academia better monitor the needs of the enterprise and teach relevant skills their students will need upon graduation?
Paul also examines how using sandboxes and collaborative spaces can encourage experimentation, skills development, and collaboration across universities and practitioner areas.

Practitioners:
Where should you be expanding your skills? What traits are IT leaders looking for today?

Paul and Steve talk about the importance of integrating business along with IT skills.

There are four pivotal information technologies that are rapidly reshaping how enterprises operate: mobile technology, business analytics, cloud computing, and social business. All four of these technologies are potentially disruptive, and they also come with unique security concerns. Many people fear the security implications of employees bringing their own mobile devices to work, or storing mission critical databases in public cloud environments. Fear shouldn’t drive organizations away from these potentially transformative technologies. How are organizations overcoming their fears? How are they breaking though the “security wall”?

Recently IBM released the results of its 2012 Tech Trends Report, which looks at the adoption patterns of these four technologies. It is based on a survey of over 1,200 professionals who make technology decisions – the respondents came from 16 industries and 13 countries. As part of the analysis, three different types of organizations were identified:

Pacesetters (20%) believe emerging technologies are critical to their business success and are using them to enable new operating/business models. They’re also adopting ahead of their competition.

Followers (55%) agree that these technologies are important and can provide critical capabilities and differentiation, but they generally trail Pacesetters in adoption.

Dabblers (25%) are generally behind or, at best, on par with competitors in terms of adoption. They’re less strategic in their use of emerging technologies, namely citing greater efficiency or new capabilities in selected areas.

One common thread across all three of the identified groups is that security is a significant area of importance and concern. In fact, 62% of respondents cite security as one of the three most important areas facing their organization over the next two years, with 27% rating it number one. One interesting aspect is that, the less mature an organization is with respect to the four strategic technology areas, the more security rates as an area of importance and focus. Seventy-seven percent of the Dabblers cited security as a top-three area of importance, versus only 49% of the more mature Pacesetters. Why is that? Perhaps the Dabblers don’t fully understand, or trust, that there are security technologies, policies and practices that can ensure a more secure approach overall. Or perhaps they lack the experience the Pacesetters have.

“Security and privacy are not always treated as first-order problems. Things are deployed and made widely available without regard for security and privacy. In a best-case scenario, security and privacy are thought of as add-ons. Worst case, they’re ignored completely.”
– Dr. Eugene Spafford, Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, Purdue University

Besides being an area of significant importance, security is also seen as a significant barrier to technology adoption by the survey respondents. Information security is ranked as one of the top two barriers to adoption across the four technology areas – more than integration, inadequate skills or regulation and compliance. Overall, security is the biggest barrier for a majority of respondents for mobile (61%) and cloud (56%) adoption. Security is cited less often as the top adoption barrier in social (47%) and analytics (31%). As shown by the dark blue bars in the graph below, there isn’t a huge gap between the groups (9-11%) when it comes to security concerns, but, in general, less mature Dabblers see security as more of a barrier than the more mature Pacesetters. The exception is analytics, which has the lowest adoption barrier. Perhaps Pacesetters better understand the potential risks in implementing advanced analytic systems.

Another part of the security wall blocking the full realization of the benefits of the four technologies is that organizations’ current IT security policies aren’t sufficient. The figure above generally shows correlations between viewing security as a barrier to adoption (dark blue bars) and inadequate security policies (light blue bars). The Pacesetters are more confident across the board, with a majority saying that their security policies are adequate. The “adequate policies gap” between the Pacesetters and Dabblers ranges from 13% to 32%, a fairly wide margin. This tells us that organizations that have the right security policies in place are more confident, and less likely to see security as a barrier. For the others, there is a gap between their fears and taking the steps needed to address those fears.

Another tool organizations are using to attack the security wall is skills development. A majority of the respondents know that security is an issue and are working hard to boost their confidence. Overall, 70% of organizations are planning to develop or acquire skills in “mobile security and privacy” and “cloud security” – the two technology areas where security is seen as the biggest barrier.

Security is tightly intertwined with the four technology areas discussed. You shouldn’t pursue cloud, mobile, social or analytics endeavors without also focusing on needed security technologies, skills, policies and practices. The more you focus on policies and skills, the less likely you will see security as an impediment. Treat security as a business imperative and make it a priority. Design security in from the start of any project. Doing this will increase confidence and help to tear down the walls that are slowing the adoption of important, transformative technologies.

Do you know which industry is adopting analytics fastest? Do you know which industry has the biggest problem with social skills? Now you can find out.

The latest IBM Tech Trends Study surveyed over 1200 IT and business decision-makers – IT managers, business professionals and IT practitioners from 16 different industries and 13 countries – to assess how and why enterprises are adopting four emerging technologies – Mobile, Analytics, Cloud and Social Business – that are dramatically transforming how enterprises operate.

The study showed that Business Analytics and Mobile Computing represent a large swell, with over half of respondents already adopting these technologies. Cloud Computing and Social Business form a coming wave, with 40% currently piloting or planning to adopt by 2014. Furthermore, enterprises’ projected investment in the four areas is surging: 55% or more plan to increase investment in Mobile, Cloud, and Business Analytics, and 43% project increased investment in Social Business.

Despite the momentum in these areas, the study also uncovered a critical shortage of IT skills: Across all four technology areas, only about 1 in 10 companies reports having all the skills needed to be successful, and a quarter of respondents report major skill gaps.

A Deeper Dive: the Tech Trends Industry Dashboard

Today we’re launching a new interactive dashboard that allows you to explore the study findings in a dynamic way, by industry and by tech area. You can investigate adoption, investment, and skills for a particular industry within each tech area and sort to see how that industry compares to others, or to the cross-industry average.

Here’s one example. I chose Analytics, then Adoption Levels, and sorted by “Deployment” (and also clicked to “show percentages”):

We see that Insurance, Media and Entertainment, and Banking are the top three front runner industries in terms of high adoption of Analytics. Where does your industry fall?

You can also click on a particular industry name to bring up a graph specific to that industry; here we see Analytics skill levels reported by Media and Entertainment organizations:

It appears that Media and Entertainment is doing better on Analytics skills than the average: 23% have all the skills they need for Analytics, versus just 13% across all industries.

Sharing your insights

Are you successfully surfing one of the big tech waves but getting knocked down by another? Regarding your enterprise itself, do you think you’re outpacing your industry, keeping up, or lagging?

If you have particular insights about your industry’s position, please share them. All the graphs you encounter in the exploration are shareable – use the social media buttons or the embed code located beneath each graph to embed the graph within a blog, web page, or social media site. The embedded graph retains all the interactive functionality of the full dashboard.

Happy exploring – and we hope you’ll join the conversation around these findings!

Susanne Hupfer

Consultant, IBM Center for Applied Insights

A few months ago, the IBM Center for Applied Insights embarked on a research study to find out how and why business and IT decision-makers are using cloud. At the start of that journey, I fully expected the survey data would lead us to a primarily IT story. After all, IT departments have been turning to cloud for quite some time now to achieve scale, drive cost savings, and improve organizational efficiency. And we’ve all read articles about the cloud stack wars. So, cloud must be mainly an IT thing, neatly handled by the technology parts of the enterprise, right?

Not quite. The true picture is surprising. One worldwide survey and over 800 IT and business decision-makers and users later, the data has revealed that cloud is no longer just an IT crush. Though business is a later suitor, still lagging IT somewhat in terms of strategic interest in cloud, a change in affections is brewing: Over the next three years, cloud’s strategic importance to the business – across virtually every area, including finance, operations, sales and marketing, and product development -- is poised to double from 34 percent to 72 percent – leaping over their IT counterparts at 58 percent.

So, why is business starting to crush on cloud?

Our study has revealed that leading organizations – one of five -- have discovered a secret source of competitive differentiation through cloud and are using it as an engine for growth.

These Pacesetter organizations are building competitive advantage using Cloud in three key ways – through strategic reinvention, better decisions and deeper collaboration. In each of these areas, they’re reporting business results from their use of cloud. For example, Pacesetters are:

• 70% more likely to build new and improved business models through cloud

• 117% more likely to use cloud to make data-driven, evidence-based decisions

• 71% more likely to use cloud to collaborate across the organization and ecosystem

How are the Pacesetters getting so much out of their relationship with cloud? The study reveals all, but I’ll give you a hint: Pacesetters are leading the charge toward more comprehensive cloud strategies – they’re 270% more likely than peers to have enterprise-wide cloud strategies.

This is one case where having your head stuck in the clouds just might turn your organization into a rainmaker!

I want cloud to help me make better decisions in ______________ part of my business.

I want cloud to drive deeper collaboration across ______________.

Using their input as inspiration, an artist illustrated the crowd’s cloud wish list – which areas of the business they’re targeting for reinvention, where they’d like to drive better decisions and which types of collaboration they want to strengthen.

Given the holiday season, why not take some time to think about the gifts cloud could shower on your organization? Where could cloud enable a new business strategy? Which decisions could you improve with cloud-based analytics? Where could cloud-enabled collaboration enhance business processes and drive better results?

Then as you’re making your New Year’s resolutions for 2014, figure out how to turn this wish list into reality. As the cloud study shows, leading companies aren’t settling simply for greater efficiency from cloud; they’re using cloud to compete on a higher plane.

This week, at the annual National Retail Federation conference, “customer experience” is a hot topic. Whether they’re doing anything about it or not, retailers instinctively know experience impacts loyalty, and loyalty keeps customers buying. Forrester Research analyst Harley Manning has long argued it’s the only thing that matters. His premise: “The only source of competitive advantage is the one that can survive technology-fueled disruption: an obsession with customer experience.”

While there’s a lot of truth in Manning’s assertion, I have a corollary – one reinforced by the research we’ve done recently at the IBM Center for Applied Insights: The only way to provide a superior customer experience is with technology-fueled delivery. In other words, fight fire with fire.

Take showrooming, for example. Mobile phones have clearly disrupted the traditional shopping experience. And some retailers are still wringing their hands about sales lost from shoppers checking competitors’ prices and assortments via smart phones while in their stores. Meanwhile, other retailers are finding ways to capitalize on all those devices in shoppers’ hands – through real-time analysis of in-store shopping behavior and merging real and virtual experiences.

What will the next retail disruptor be? Will Square and Paypal do away with POS terminals? How will retailers re-imagine the cross- and up-sell process when checkout counters and wrap-stand displays disappear?

Will cognitive systems like Watson sell products and field customer service questions? What about augmented reality? Wearable technology? Rather than view emerging innovations as threats, smart retailers will see these as opportunities to improve the customer’s shopping experience.

Although Manning might consider IT “table stakes,” I disagree. Obviously, there’s a certain technology bar retailers must meet to stay relevant, but IT – executed well – can still be a differentiator when it comes to the retail customer experience. Admittedly, I’m a bit biased (given where I work). But my opinions are backed by a fair amount of evidence too.

IBM’s annual State of Marketing study – involving more than 500 organizations across 15 industries – showed companies that effectively integrate technology to influence the customer experience are outperforming financially. These leading companies are experiencing 3.4 times the net income growth – and 1.8 times the gross profit growth – of their peers. The study outlines a suite of differentiators that set these leading companies apart, but two fundamental IT capabilities stood out to me.

First, these leaders have tackled the tough job of integrating all their channels. Unlike many of their peers, they’re equipped to deliver a consistent omni-channel experience. This behind-the-scenes plumbing allows them to accomplish the second feat – adjusting those customer experiences as they happen, often based on cloud-enabled data analytics (Listen to IBM Distinguished Engineer Frank DeGilio discuss how cloud is changing the customer experience).

Through integration and contextual insights, these leaders are building the muscle mass they need to tackle technology-fueled disruption. As new possibilities emerge – even when disguised as threats – leading companies will be ready to turn the tables, using technology to reinvent the customer experience.

This famous quote from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis extols the virtues of openness and transparency – shedding light on peoples’ actions to avert wrongdoing. In our high-tech times, organizations would be wise to apply this thinking to address “shadow IT” – employees using software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications that are procured and deployed without going through established IT channels and policies. Let’s see why.

The SaaS train has left the station, and there’s no slowing it down: global spending on SaaS is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 20.2% in 2012-2017, reaching US$45.6 billion by 2017.

The IBM Center for Applied Insights has just released a global study of 879 IT and line-of-business (LOB) SaaS decision-makers: Champions of Software as a Service: How SaaS is fueling powerful competitive advantage. The research reveals that application agility – the ability to quickly, easily, flexibly deploy applications and implement solutions – is the number two driver for adopting SaaS (following close on the heels of reducing total cost of ownership), so it’s easy to understand why businesses find SaaS so irresistible.

The temptation is great for employees to quickly and easily deploy SaaS applications without involving the IT department to approve, provision, and secure them – but these rogue deployments can expose the organization to security risks and other negative consequences.

So, what does “sunlight” have to do with SaaS? The IBM study grouped organizations based on their level of SaaS adoption and whether they’re reporting competitive advantage from SaaS. Pacesetters are the 19% of respondents reporting the highest level of SaaS adoption and gaining competitive advantage through their broad SaaS efforts. At the low end, Chasers are much slower to adopt SaaS and gain competitive advantage from it.

Rather than deploying SaaS on the sly, pacesetting enterprises actually cultivate a strong collaboration between LOB and IT on SaaS activities such as selection, deployment, and security.

In 71% of Pacesetter organizations, LOB and IT strongly collaborate on SaaS selection and deployment, whereas only 36% of Chasers report a strong collaboration. 70% of Pacesetters report that SaaS is strengthening the IT and LOB relationship, versus only 39% of Chasers.

A strong strategy is another significant differentiator of the Pacesetters’ approach to SaaS: Compared to Chasers, more than twice as many Pacesetters have a cohesive, enterprise-wide SaaS strategy (71% versus 31%), and Pacesetters are four times more likely to position SaaS as an integral part of their enterprise cloud strategy.

The dark alleys of “shadow IT” lose their danger once one shines a strong light on them. Fostering a well-defined SaaS strategy and encouraging strong IT/LOB collaboration around SaaS are the “sunlight” that leading SaaS enterprises use to combat shadow IT.

January was a very busy month for the Center team. After wrapping up the holidays, we put the final polish on our study of African IT leaders and finished a deeper look at cloud initiatives and how software as a service plays a role. We kicked of a self-assessment on SaaS uses which we'll share later this month, along with exploring research ideas for sourcing, cloud, tech trends, mobile, and social business.

"IBM’s data and findings complement and support a position that Saugatuck has long espoused, to wit: the role(s) and attitudes/approaches of IT leaders and groups would change as SaaS / Cloud becomes more mainstream, and as it becomes more important to business success." - Information Management

“This study really helped to clarify and expose the fact that SaaS has taken center stage in companies of all sizes,” he said. “The big take away is that there is a marked difference in behaviors between the most successful companies and the rest of the pack, and that the two big drivers of business success with SaaS and cloud in general are alignment between IT and the lines-of-business and the presence of a broader cloud computing strategy.” - Armen Najarian, program director for SaaS Marketing, IBM quoted in SiliconANGLE

"When it comes to SaaS specifically, a new IBM Study released Jan. 28 found that leading enterprises—those gaining competitive advantage through broad SaaS adoption—are collaborating more effectively through social business tools." - eWEEK

February's signature experiences within IBM focus on Africa. Our study, developed with the Center for CIO Leadership, looked at how IT leaders deliver on the potential of emerging technolgies "Setting the pace in Africa." But, don't take our word on it...

“The primary reasons for not moving on adoption were a need for technology leaders to play a greater role in strategic business leadership, a lack of IT skills development across the continent, and information security concerns,” said IBM General Manager for East Africa, Nicholas Nesbitt. -Capital FM

"The survey shows that companies have found ways of empowering their IT leaders through a cultural shift as well as internal engagement between business leaders and their business peers." - All Africa

Our recent Global SaaS study revealed that organizations are not just using SaaS to reduce costs, but are actually gaining competitive advantage through their SaaS solutions. Given the promise of advantage over peers, what is holding some organizations back from broad SaaS adoption? For many, it’s security. And what outcomes are companies missing out on by not adopting SaaS? Improved collaboration, innovation, and better decision-making, to name a few. The Saas “Pacesetters” – those leading enterprises gaining competitive advantage through widespread SaaS adoption – are achieving these to a greater extent than their peers.... Read more >

The Software as a Service train has left the station, and there’s no slowing it down: global spending on SaaS is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 20.2% in 2012-2017, reaching US$45.6 billion by 2017.

The IBM Center for Applied Insights recently released the report Champions of Software as a Service: How SaaS is fueling powerful competitive advantage, based on a global study of 879 IT and line-of-business (LOB) SaaS decision-makers. Most organizations start their SaaS journey seeking lower total cost of ownership – it’s the #1 driver for SaaS adoption, and 41% of them are achieving it to a high degree. However, the research reveals that competitive advantage is an even bigger outcome, with 47% of enterprises achieving it.

The study examined Saas “Pacesetters” – those organizations that have adopted SaaS most widely and are gaining competitive advantage through their initiatives – to see what sets them apart. These leading organizations realize better enterprise efficiency with SaaS, but they also achieve deep collaboration, better decision making, and market agility more so than their peers. What’s so special about the Pacesetters’ approach that helps them overachieve? The study found that Pacesetters take a more cohesive, enterprise-wide approach to their SaaS strategy and foster greater collaboration between IT and LOB.

How does your organization measure up to the SaaS Pacesetters? Why not take your SaaS pulse by checking out our new interactive SaaS Pulse tool… We’ll ask you nine key questions that were part of the SaaS study questionnaire and let you know how your responses measure up to the Pacesetters. If your SaaS pulse is a little weak, we’ll give you some recommendations on how to improve your SaaS fitness. Good luck!

Cloud remains a hot topic on our IBMCAI blog. Check out and share these recent cloud posts from Leonard Lee and Susanne Hupfer.

1.Pharma excels at SaaS three-legged race

The truth is many companies are actually cultivating a strong working relationship between IT and business leaders through SaaS. To get the speed and results they’re seeking, they’ve found they need to work in tandem, much like a three-legged race. This is particularly true among leading companies, according to the IBM Global SaaS study..

What’s motivating South Africa and India to keep pumping money into cloud?

It seems they’re prepping their organizations for growth. The top reasons for adopting cloud in other geographies are: cost reduction, collaboration or workflow optimization. But in South Africa and India, cloud decision makers are motivated most by scalability. They want flexibility to expand – fast.